Saturday, October 3, 2015

Pelvic bone of a 15,000-year-old wooly mammoth found in a soybean field in Michigan


Farmers in Michigan have come across what appears to be the pelvic bone of a wooly mammoth that roamed some 15,000 years ago – they were digging in the soybean field when they unearthed an item that looked like a bent fence post, caked with mud. It turned out to be part of a pelvis from an ancient woolly mammoth.
This has been reported in nzherald.co.nz dated 4 October 2015.
A team of paleontologists from the University of Michigan and an excavator have managed to recover nearly 20 percent of the animal's skeleton. Apart from the pelvis, the team has found the skull and two tusks, along with numerous vertebrae, ribs and both shoulder blades.
Study of the bones could provide a clue of when humans arrived in the Americas. As indicated by Daniel Fisher, the scientist who led the dig, it is possible that the animal was killed by humans who were here. They could have killed it and stashed the meat so that they could come back later for it. Three boulders the size of basketballs found next to the remains could be evidence that these might have been used to anchor the carcass in a pond.
In the opinion of experts, mammoths and mastodons, another elephant-like creature, were common in North America before they disappeared around 11,700 years ago. So far, remains of about 300 mastodons and 30 mammoths have been discovered in Michigan but the latest find is more complete.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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